ABC Movie tonight: Walking A Long Mile In Judas's Sandals

[TomS]

Walking A Long Mile In Judas's Sandals

By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 8, 2004; Page C01

Jesus Christ was one groovy dude -- at least according to "Judas," an ABC movie that tells a very familiar story but from a unfamiliar point of view.

In the modern-vernacular film, airing tonight at 9 on Channel 7, Jesus is certainly the Good Guy (okay, the Best Guy), but Judas isn't simply the bad one. History's most famous traitor, in effect, gets plopped down on an analyst's couch and probed, and though he's guilty as sin of betraying Jesus, we're asked to consider him as a complex human being with traces of decency as well as dishonor running through his veins.

At least these filmmakers adhere to the physicians' credo "First, do no harm." Unlike Mel Gibson's notorious "The Passion of the Christ," ABC's movie seems happily lacking in anti-Semitic aspersions. Writer Tom Fontana, whose impressive credits include the uncompromising "Oz" on HBO, has Pontius Pilate's wife tell her husband, as the assassination of Jesus is plotted on Palm Sunday: "Fix it so the Jews themselves are held responsible."

It might have been better still if the conversation had continued with Pilate scoffing, "Who'd believe that?" and his wife replying, "You can always find a few bigots and idiots who'll believe anything." Regardless, the Big Lie was born, and two millennia later, Gibson would find a way to recycle it and gross more than $200 million in the process. Surely his parking space in Hell has already been reserved. :shock:

The movie sets the story of Jesus against the power grabbing of the time, with spin doctors either proclaiming Him the son of God or denouncing Him as a charlatan. The disciples resemble advance men, scouting locations and drumming up enthusiasm for their "candidate."

One impediment to taking Fontana's movie more seriously is the way he has modernized the dialogue. It was done, no doubt, in the interest of accessibility, but after a while, you half-expect Jesus to start calling his disciples "you guys."

Recruiting Judas for the cause, the film's happy hippie version of Jesus says to him: "I want you to spend eternity with me, with my father. Whaddaya say?" When the disciples ask Jesus to tell them what fate has chosen for Him, Jesus tells them, "You're not ready to handle the details." Some disciples lobby for violence, but Jesus says, "That is not the way we're gonna win." Ordering Jesus arrested, Pilate instructs soldiers to go to Gethsemane and "grab him."

True, nobody yells out "Yo, Jesus!" or says, "I know where you're comin' from, man" (or sings "Hey, Jude"). And one can appreciate Fontana wanting to avoid all that "thee," "thine" and "thou" stuff, but he went too far the other way. In addition, the actor playing Jesus, Jonathan Scarfe, looks like Conan O'Brien in a wig and beard, except that he's on the chubby side and has a rather sappy smile.

It's more than coincidental that ABC is airing "Judas" while's Gibson's gloomy gore fest is still in theaters. TV Guide reports that "Judas" was made in 2001 but was salted away by ABC executives who feared the film would offend fundamentalists. Any protest over "Judas" now, however, would be dwarfed by the din over Gibson's movie anyway.

Versatile Johnathan Schaech, in the title role, does about as much as can be done with a character more hated than John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald put together. Judas is a political animal in Fontana's vision, a would-be rabble-rouser who advocates overthrow of the government by force or violence. In that, the film somewhat resembles Nicholas Ray's respectable Hollywood biblical "King of Kings," which eschewed special-effects miracles for a humanist approach. Ray had the thief Barabbas, not Judas, being the political firebrand.

Judas chafes at the peaceful teachings of Jesus but likes Him in a best-bud kind of way. In one of the film's more embarrassing scenes, the two pals are horsing around and break into an impromptu wrestling match. The torture and physical punishment in which Gibson wallows mostly occurs off-screen in "Judas." Fontana and director Charles Robert Carner prove that it is possible to convey the barbaric horror of crucifixion without going into sociopathic excess.

"Judas," says a printed prologue, is "an interpretive dramatization" based on what is known about his life. There's another on-screen notation at the film's end: "In Memoriam: Father Ellwood Kieser," dedicating the movie to the well-liked TV priest who died in September 2000. Kieser saw the positive possibilities of television and produced many worthwhile shows to take advantage of them.

While "Judas" is not a triumph, it attempts to deal in profoundly important concepts without dumbing them down excessively for network TV. In that it is true to the goals of Father Kieser, who left hours and hours of programming to be remembered by, and who did them to glorify someone other than himself.

[Seraphim Reeves]

(original article can be found here)

At least these filmmakers adhere to the physicians' credo "First, do no harm." Unlike Mel Gibson's notorious "The Passion of the Christ," ABC's movie seems happily lacking in anti-Semitic aspersions. Writer Tom Fontana, whose impressive credits include the uncompromising "Oz" on HBO, has Pontius Pilate's wife tell her husband, as the assassination of Jesus is plotted on Palm Sunday: "Fix it so the Jews themselves are held responsible."

Of course, we see here a "synagogue friendly" version of the life of Christ being played out - one which requires you to be either highly illiterate of (or extremely cynical towards) what the New Testament and ecclessial tradition says on this topic.

Though the people who rubber stamped this project (and most "Christians) are unaware of this, Claudia Procula (Pontius Pilate's wife) is a saint as far as the Orthodox Church is concerned, commemorated on the 27th of October. According to St.Matthew 27:19, she emplores her husband to not bring harm to our Lord. This is beside the fact that the Scriptures make it quite clear that Pontius Pilate did not want to bring harm to our Lord, his conscience troubled by this obvious innocent. This is not to say Pontius Pilate was not a harsh man, as was common of military men in those pagan times - but he was also human, not without a conscience, and having no reason to seek after Christ's life (unlike the Jews), could not but be inexplicably touched by His grace and purity.

Thus, this disgusting "film" not only muddles the truth, but also insults a Saint of Christ's Church. But alas, who cares...it has the kosher seal of approval!

It might have been better still if the conversation had continued with Pilate scoffing, "Who'd believe that?" and his wife replying, "You can always find a few bigots and idiots who'll believe anything." Regardless, the Big Lie was born, and two millennia later, Gibson would find a way to recycle it and gross more than $200 million in the process. Surely his parking space in Hell has already been reserved.

"The Big Lie" - no, I'm afraid it is no lie; the Jews conspired against and killed their God, thus rendering the Synagogue a force of spiritual malevonce and a counterfeit of humanistic messianism. That this is true (even though ugly) is no one's fault by the conspirers against our Lord, and those both then and now who regard their "tradition" (which came to form rabbinical Judaism) as a revelation from God.

It is incredibly cynical also that people like this author (though he is certainly not alone) are now chiding Mr.Gibson for the success of this film. Up until very recently, all of the Holy-weird pandits were saying this film was going to be a collosal failure, goaded it for not being able to find a big distributor, etc. Much was made of the fact that this film could not find any financiers, so Gibson had to put up his own money. Well now, it turns out they were wrong - so they now fault Gibson for personally financing, to the tune of 25 million U.S. dollars a film no one else seemed to believe in, and actually have a sucess on his hands.

Of course, no one questions the profit motives of the kosher trash peddlers in holy-weird who finance or "creatively" instigate films which attack Christian beliefs or personages; no one accused Martin Scorcesee of trying to "profit off religion" for his blasphemous travesty (which thank God, bombed at the box office...for among other reasons, because it is a terribly acted/written/directed mess) The Last Temptation of Christ. The hypocricy of these folks is nauseating.

Btw. having seen Mel's film and knowing something of the period surrounding our Lord's death and ressurection, the film is not wildly speculative in it's portrayals, even excluding the Scriptural witness. We know from non-Christian sources that Pontius Pilate's administration of Palestine was extremely difficult - there were zealot factions whose tactics and fanaticism differ only from those of the Taliban in terms of technology (since such groups certainly had death wish fantasies - Masada was a later example of this); there were popular revolts and riots a plenty, and nothing he did ever seemed to work - whether it be easing up on the Jews, or cracking down on them with incredible brutality. Pilate (despite what kosher "scholars" will tell you) was less a monster, and more a pragmatist/worldly-man stuck in a sea of middle eastern fantacism - perhaps the American military administration in Iraq & Afghanastan can sympathize with some of the challenges he (a westerner) faced in a cesspool of religious fanticism, tribal infighting, and conflicting nationalistic aspirations.

We also know, he had run afoul of Caesar several times, for his inability to bring "the Roman peace" to Palestine. Thus, the threat of a mob of Jews whipped up by their priests elders,and religious scholars/"scribes" ("taliban" means "scholars", btw, as in religious scholars) causing riots, and making it quite clear they will make it known to Caesar should he (Pilate) let a "pretender to the crown" of David go free, was enough to brow beat him into doing that which he did not want to. Pilate's crime, is weakness and compromise.

For ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. (1st Thessalonians 2:14-16)

While St.Paul has been accused of anti-semiticism (an idiocy on many levels - the first being that he was ethnically and biologically a Hebrew/Semite!), do not these words of the Apostle ring errily true to this day - the Jewish attempt to not simply aggrivate the attempts of the Church to speak to Jews, but more significantly, to be able to preach even to the nations ("Gentiles")? By extension then, anything even coming close to an accurate expression of Christianity, even it's most basic aspects, is functionally supressed by them wherever they have the means, either through out right prohibition (which is coming) or more commonly (as is now present) through perversion and lies.

Seraphim